Win a trip to South Korea! Annual Weta design competition open

In 2015 the winner of the Gwangmyeong Concept Design Competition was Massey University Bachelor of Design graduate Daniel Voss. Entries are open till July 20 for this year's contest.

Creative students at Massey University are urged to turn their imaginations into stellar pieces of art to win a trip to South Korea with Weta Workshop chief executive and co-founder Sir Richard Taylor.

Each year Weta Workshop calls for New Zealand tertiary students to let their imaginations run wild and submit an entry to the Gwangmyeong Concept Design Competition with both the winning artist and runner-up joining Sir Richard in Korea.

Now in its fifth year, the competition is open to all New Zealand students of any age and discipline to respond to a brief outlined by Sir Richard in which he has challenged submitters “to see something we’ve never seen before”.

“We’re asking students to imagine that a famous international television producer is making a new series based around a fantastical land on an unknown planet, not unlike our own planet – think Earth in the late Middle Ages. What might this alien world look like, at that point in time?”

As in previous years, the judging panel will consist of Sir Richard, and key members of the Weta Workshop Design Studio. The designers, whose recent work includes Pacific Rim Uprising, A Wrinkle In Time, Blade Runner 2049 and the Netflix series Altered Carbon, will be looking for originality, technical ability and believability.

“It’s a fantastic opportunity for entrants to get their work in front of the eyes of industry,” Sir Richard says.

In 2015 the winner was Massey University Bachelor of Design graduate Daniel Voss. The runner-up that year, College of Creative Arts graduate Tahiwi Trenor Hunt, now works at Weta Workshop.

Entries for the Gwangmyeong Concept Design Competition close on July 20